by G. A. Aiken
And by the time Meinhard sat up, yawning and scratching his belly, his cousin had told him something that, twenty minutes later, still sounded ridiculous.
“You’re telling us she’s fucking spies?”
“Yes.”
Meinhard simply didn’t understand his cousin. Here before him was a beautiful dragoness, ripe for the plucking, and this idiot was believing tales about Princess Keita and spies. Honestly, what was wrong with him?
Although, when Meinhard thought about it, it was enjoyable to see his cousin acting a little less cold and standoffish, and a little more like a true Northlander. Possessive, erratic, and dangerously unstable.
To clarify what Ragnar was telling them, Meinhard asked, “Yes, you know for a fact that she’s fucking spies? Or yes, you think she’s fucking spies because you’re being kind of a horse’s dick?”
“What exactly are you having trouble believing about her?” Ragnar demanded. “The spying or the fucking?”
Meinhard looked at Vigholf, and together they replied, “The spying.”
Ragnar began rubbing his forehead, and Vigholf said, “Look, brother, we’re not saying the princess hasn’t bedded spies. If they were male, chances are she’s had her way with them. But giving them information? About her time in the Northlands? About her mother? No. I don’t see that.”
Ragnar got to his claws and began to pace. “What is this lofty pillar you two have her on?”
“We’re not as snobby as you,” Meinhard told him. “Don’t need proof of virginity for a female to be in my bed. Actually…I’d prefer she wasn’t. That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“And can be bor-ing,” Vigholf sang under his breath.
“This has nothing to do with her virginity or lack thereof,” Ragnar snapped.
“Then what is it? What is it about her that bothers you so much?”
Appearing more and more frustrated, Ragnar came out with, “What she could be getting herself involved in could be dangerous, and she’s not bright enough to see that.”
Meinhard shrugged. “Seems bright enough to me.”
Ragnar cleared his throat, and Meinhard and Vigholf again looked at each other.
“Oh, I see,” Meinhard reasoned. “She’s not as smart as you.”
“That is not what I’m—”
“Or your precious Lady Dagmar,” Vigholf added.
“We’re not talking about her either.”
“Why don’t you just get it over with?” Meinhard finally asked his cousin.
“Get what over with?” And the bastard had the nerve to look confused.
“Instead of accusing her of all manner of horse shit I’m not sure even you believe—just fuck her.”
Ragnar took a step back. “Pardon?”
“Fuck. Her. Fuck her like you’ve been in Uncle Adalwolf’s dungeons for the last century. Fuck her until your eyes roll to the back of your head and you can no longer walk. Fuck her and get it over with so we can get past this ox shit, dump these royals off, and get back to the Northlands where we belong.”
“And that’s your answer for how to handle this?”
“Handle what, cousin? Other than your overwhelming desire to fuck this female and that ungodsly itch you’ve got going on with your chest, I don’t see anything else to handle.”
“Well, cousin, thank you for that evaluation but I have no desire to—”
“What?” Vigholf cut in. “You have no desire to what? Fuck her? Because we all know you’re bloody gagging for it.”
“I am not!”
“You are such a liar. Does Mum know what a bloody liar you are?”
“And let’s face it, cousin, we all want to fuck her.” And of the three of them, only Ragnar’s eyes narrowed dangerously at Meinhard’s words. Yes. Definitely possessive.
“Oh, really?” Ragnar asked.
“Whether it’s that human ass or that She-dragon tail, I’m drawn in. Both look delicious.”
“And who wouldn’t want both?” Vigholf suggested.
“Exactly. But see,” Meinhard continued, “we’re not the ones gettin’ in your way. You’re gettin’ in your way. You’re bloody over-thinking it.”
“Like you do with everything,” Vigholf agreed.
Ragnar’s jaw clenched. “I do not over-think anything.”
“You do, you are, and you’re letting her get away,” Meinhard argued.
“And you’re that sure she just has to have me?” When the cousins went out of their way not to look at each other, Ragnar quickly pointed a talon. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”
“We’re telling you,” Vigholf bit out between clenched fangs, “that if you want her, you can get her.”
“And how would you know that? And don’t lie to me.”
“The Blue was a little concerned about, uh…what were those words he used, Meinhard?”
“Uh…inter-territorial relations. I think.”
“What about them?”
“He didn’t want his sister damaging them.”
“And how would she do that?”
“Well, the lad says there may be a little”—Meinhard raised his front claw, wiggled his talons—“wager going on between the princess and that foreign friend of hers.”
“Apparently that’s something the two of them do when they’re bored,” Vigholf said.
“Wager? What kind of wager?”
“To see whether she could get you into bed or not,” Meinhard answered.
Vigholf shook his head at the expression on his brother’s face. “And look at ya. Pissed off. Over this.”
“Of course, I’m pissed off over this!”
“Why?” Meinhard asked. “You’ve got yourself a She-dragon of royal blood, laid out on a slab for you to fuck, and you’re pissed? Is there something wrong with you?”
“They’re wagering on my cock!” Ragnar exploded, front claws going high in the air as if he didn’t understand his kin at all. And he didn’t. As they didn’t understand him. Not when it came to this sort of thing.
“So? I’d let that dragoness wager on my cock daily.”
“If it were me,” Vigholf said, three talons clicking together to drive home his point, “I’d let her win that wager. I’d let her win it over and over and over again. Until neither of us could move or possibly breathe. That’s what I’d do.”
“Because you’re both bloody worthless!” Ragnar roared and marched off into the trees.
Meinhard glanced at Vigholf and asked, “Did he just yell at us?”
“I think he did. Several times.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him yell about anything.”
“Good point.” Meinhard scratched his head. “But still, the loss of all those tightly controlled emotions…”
“It’s like I said.” And Vigholf yelled the rest at Ragnar’s retreating tail, “He’s bloody gagging for it!”
Meinhard only had a chance for a short laugh before he was dodging that boulder his own blood had chucked at his and Vigholf’s heads.
To Keita’s eternal surprise, the warlord didn’t complain at all when she and Ren eventually returned from the city. They’d taken their time walking back, planning out how they’d handle the next step in their search for Esyld. Yet the warlord said nothing. Nor did his brother or cousin. And, of course, all Éibhear cared about were the new books she’d brought with her from Gorlas’s store.
“Aw, Keita. You’re the best!” Éibhear said, grinning at her.
“Sorry about coming back so late,” Keita sweetly offered while removing her fur cape and silk gown so she could shift.
“Not a problem,” Ragnar grumbled back, shocking her.
“What?” Keita was sure she’d heard incorrectly.
“I said not a problem. We’ve already camped for the night.” Then he walked off, leaving her standing there, utterly confused. So Keita grabbed Ren’s hair and yanked him close.
“Ow!”
“What’s he up to?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. And unleash me, female!”
She did. “What do you mean ‘probably nothing’?”
“Probably nothing.”
Now her eyes had narrowed on Ren. “What do you know?”
“In what sense?”
“In…what? Don’t toy with me, Ren of the Chosen.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I don’t care.”
He moved her farther away from the group. “He followed us into town this afternoon.”
“He did what?”
“Don’t worry. There was nothing for him to see, and if he asks, you were in a nice, clean, boring bookstore and I was getting that necklace evaluated.”
“But how dare he follow me?”
“Let it go, Keita.”
“Like one of the hells, I will.” And with that Keita followed Ragnar out to the nearby lake.
He sat on his haunches by the water’s edge, gazing across the placid surface. But he wasn’t alone.
She stood just behind him for rather a long time before his entire body tensed.
“Sneaking up on me, princess?” he asked.
“Didn’t realize I had,” she lied. As her mother had pointed out on more than one occasion when startled by Keita, “sneaky as a snake, that one.”
Keita moved up alongside him. “Are you aware there’s a black bird on your head?” she asked.
He turned his gaze to her.
“Yes,” he replied. “A crow. And I’m aware.”
“Did it mistake you for a statue?”
“No.”
She watched both dragon and bird a bit longer before asking, “Are you going to leave him up there?”
“He’s not causing me any bother.”
“But you have a bird on your head.”
“Yes. We’ve established this. Although I don’t know why that surprises you so. You seem to have your own entourage.”
When Keita frowned, he motioned behind her. Keita glanced at what nuzzled her tail. “Oh. Them.”
“Yes. Them. Do packs of wolves often follow you around?”
“Just the males.”
“Pardon?”
She smiled. “What can I say? Males love me. Every breed, every species. It’s not my fault. I do nothing to lure them, but they come anyway.”
Shaking his head a little, Ragnar coldly replied, “I see.”
When he said nothing else, Keita thought about pushing for more information but decided against it. She didn’t like the warlord’s mood. It made her uncomfortable. She didn’t like to feel uncomfortable. “Éibhear says dinner will be soon,” she offered, turning away from him to head back to camp.
“Tell me something, princess.”
Keita stopped.
“What were you doing in the Northlands when my father found you?”
The question threw Keita off because she hadn’t been expecting it. Two years ago she’d expected it, but not now. Not here. And what in all the hells did that have to do with him following her into Fenella?
Keita smiled, tossing her hair off her face. “Just being rebellious. You know how mothers and daughters can be.”
“There are too few daughters in the north for parents to afford alienating them, but I have some idea. Still,” he went on when she took another step away, “it was a risk. Wasn’t it? Being in enemy territory?”
This dragon was digging, and Keita was in no mood to give him what he wanted. So she did what she always did best when she wanted to throw someone off….
She became sneaky as a snake.
Ragnar didn’t know what appalled him more at the moment. That a royal would involve herself with spies—most likely out of pure boredom—or that she’d been wagering on his cock? Perhaps he was appalled by both. What kind of royal spent her time trying to seduce males for sport when she wasn’t visiting spy guilds in nearby cities? One not worthy of the loyalty and lust she seemed to have earned from Ragnar’s idiot brother and idiot cousin.
Keita’s claw slid across Ragnar’s chest, the talons scraping against his scales. Startled, Ragnar jumped a little, his bird visitor flitting off to the trees. Leaving Ragnar alone—with her.
“Princess—”
She brushed her head under his chin and nuzzled his neck. “What is it you want from me, Lord Ragnar?” she asked, her voice husky. “You ask so many questions, but I don’t know what you want. Or perhaps I’m merely being difficult. Perhaps I want you to drag the information from me.” She went up on the tips of her back talons, her snout brushing against his throat, her voice whispering in his ear. “Perhaps it would be better for both of us if you’d tie me up—and make me give you the answers. Or chains,” she purred, a little breathless. “Imagine what we could do with a few hours alone and chains.”
Ragnar had her by the shoulders, was already pulling her to his body, when he realized exactly what he was doing. What she’d gotten him to do. With some gods-damn nuzzling and the mere mention of chains!
Viper!
Ragnar shoved her away, and instead of being angry, she laughed. Her façade of sexual abandon slipping away to show the hardened dragoness beneath. “What’s wrong, warlord? Are chains not the way to go with you? Do you like the coquettish ingénue more? Or the struggling virgin who keeps saying ‘no, no, no’ but really means ‘yes, yes, yes!’?” Her laughter rang out across the lake.
“What I like, princess—”
“No, no. Don’t tell me. I’ll bet you like the whole regal majesty thing, yes? Tail up, head down, ready to take one for the future survival of one’s bloodline?”
She was irritating him, and he needed to leave. “As a matter of—”
“That seemed to be,” she cut in, her tail picking up a stone and tossing it into the lake, “what your father favored.” She sat back on her haunches and raised her front claws. “Not that I’d know personally. But is that it?” she asked. “Is that what you like?” She smirked, brown eyes sizing him up, purposely going for his weakest spot. “Are we having a ‘like father like son’ moment?”
And that’s when something inside Ragnar broke. Even though he knew on some level she was merely taunting him to distract him from the questions he’d been asking, he could not hold his anger at bay. Not over this insult.
“No, princess,” he replied, his voice low. “What I like, what I’ve always liked, is someone with the ability to think, to reason, to have a life that those in the future will consider meaningful. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problems taking a working whore to bed, because I appreciate any female who understands business and the use of coin. But a vapid virgin with nothing in her head is as bad as a vapid slag with nothing in her head. Because when the fucking ends, and all you’re left with is each other, then what do you do?” He gave a small shrug. “I guess what you do is leave. You know, before some male looks too close—and sees absolutely nothing.”
He expected talons to claw across his face. They didn’t.
He expected tears, accusations of hatred. They never came.
He expected rage, storming off. None of that either.
Instead her gaze was steady, her back straight, her voice even and calm. “I guess I should be grateful you don’t have your sword tied to your back, because clearly I touched a nerve. But that’s all right.” She stepped around him. “We played a game that went too far. Now we know the boundaries.” She headed back to camp, saying as she walked, “Although if you call me a slag or whore again—I’ll have you killed. I only let my sister and mother get away with that, and that’s because they’re more dangerous than you could ever hope to be, warlord.”
She left him standing there, staring at the ground. Never before, not once in his life, had Ragnar lost control of his tongue. Words had always been his weapon as much as Magick and good steel, because most of his kin, especially his father, were unable to fight Ragnar on that level. But, he used to think with pride, he never went for the easy strike. He never used words simply to hurt, to
destroy. When he used them, it was to get what he wanted. Yet suddenly, in the middle of some Southland forest, he’d used words like his father once used his favorite warhammer. Brutally and with no care for the outcome.
Disgusted with himself, Ragnar again sat on his haunches at the water’s edge and tried hard to convince himself that the look of pain he’d seen in Princess Keita’s brown eyes was not nearly as bad as it had seemed.
Chapter Eleven
He wished he could say that for the next two days of their trip she wouldn’t speak to him, refused to look at him, that she flounced off every time he asked her a question, that she hissed at him, or told him to piss off anytime he opened his mouth.
Ragnar wished he could say Princess Keita had done all that. That she’d played the wounded royal to the hilt. Too bad her way of getting even was much more artful, much more brutal.
Keita did in fact speak to Ragnar. Very politely. When she asked for something, she always followed her request with “please.” When he told her to do something, she did it without question and followed what he said to the letter. She joined into conversation only when spoken to directly, and her replies were never too short or too long.
She kept her back straight, her head high, and even borrowed one of her brother’s books to read during their breaks.
Ragnar soon realized that Keita had become everything he’d always expected and wanted out of a proper royal princess. He also now realized how much he hated a proper royal princess. He never thought he’d miss her laugh or the way she flirted with his kin or himself, or those annoying giggles and the way she teased her brother. But he did miss all that. At the very least, he missed them from Keita.
But she’d frozen him out, hadn’t she? Like an avalanche of snow burying him beneath a cliff.
The others knew something had happened. They all watched the etiquette-correct moments between him and Keita and they knew something had changed, but none knew what. Except the Eastlander. He glared at Ragnar every time Keita’s back was turned.
Not that Ragnar blamed either the Eastlander or Keita. He’d been unable to sleep the last two nights, flinching each time he remembered what he’d said to her.